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of silk with customers mainly from the nobility and Ihe royalty. Again, apart from caste or occupation the lineage was also an im port ant factor contributing to social status and verse 18 leaves us in no doubt that some of the silk-weavers had renowned and long-established lineage of which not only were they proud but conscious in their conduct appropriate to it.

Notes and References

1.    B.Ch. Chhabra and G.S. Gai (eds.), Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, VoL DI, Revised by D.R. Bhandarkar), New Delhi Archaeological Survey of India, 1981,

p.322.

2.    The text of the record quoted here and elsewhere in the paper as also the translation following it has been taken from D.B. Diskalkar, Selections from Sanskrit Inscripdons, New Delhi, Classical Publishers, 1977.

3.    The Vśkifaka-Gupta Age, Delhi Motiłal Banarasidass, 1967, p.337. It is also noteworthy that The History and Cuhurc of the Indian People, Vol.m_v (The Classical Age) , Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1970 also merely notes the fact of various professions taken up by the silk-weavers in their new home and silently passes over its sociological implications. See p.561.

4.    R. Thapar, History of India. Vol. I, Penguin Reprint, 1977, p. 153. K.C. Jain also seems to hołd an identical opinion in his Malwa Through The Ages_t Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1972, p.304.

5.    The Wonder That was India, Fontana, Sidgwick Sc Jackson Second Impression, 1974, p. 150.

6.    The Gftś, XVm, 45-46 uses the term svakarma in the sense of one’s duty and there are no religious rites prescribcd for the Sudra to which category the weavers traditionally belongcd. Hcnce the performance of duty in their case has to be taken in the sense of following the profession of weaving.

7.    Adrian C. Mayer, Caste and Kinship in Central India, London, Routledge Sc Kegan Paul, 1960, p.4.

8.    Ibid._f p.5.

9.    The Gita, XVffl, 42-44.

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